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Today's Opinions

In the wake of the two latest instances of police killings of unarmed African-American men, we find ourselves in yet another conversation about racism and our system of criminal justice.
As if the Michael Brown situation in St. Louis wasn’t questionable enough, it’s the lack of indictment of the officer who blatantly killed 43-year-old Eric Garner, that has again sparked outrage.

As I travel across Virginia's Fifth District, I often hear from my constituents about how unnecessary bureaucratic red tape is hindering job growth and making life more difficult for working Virginians. Our nation’s outdated and complicated tax code is a perfect example of the federal government standing in the way of strengthening our economy for our nation’s families and small businesses.

Every day our law enforcement officers willingly put themselves in harm’s way.
Every traffic stop, every patrol, every response to a call carries with it the potential of danger.
And when that danger happens, decisions must be made in a split second. The lives of others, as well as their own, could hang in the balance of those decisions that are made in the blink of an eye.

It’s true that black people in America have a long history of being exploited. They were originally brought to America to provide slave labor on tobacco plantations in Virginia. Later this expanded to the cotton plantations in the deep South after Eli Whitney made improvements to the cotton gin that made it work with the variety of cotton that would grow in inland areas.

President Obama’s recent actions on protecting some five million illegal immigrants has sparked much acknowledgment across the country that the immigration problem needs a compassionate solution.
Among conservatives, however, the reaction has been predictably hysterical. The president is “a dictator.” He’s “destroying America.” He has laid waste to nothing less than “the American way of life.”

At a recent House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Acting Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy called the security lapses that allowed an armed man to jump the fence and enter the White House “devastating.” That is a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly.

Hearing from those living and working in Virginia’s Fifth District continues to be my greatest resource as I serve them. Their input has brought to light problems created by some of the big government programs coming out of Washington.